More kids getting health coverage, but still work to do

Published: Wednesday, April 30, 2008

ENRIQUE RANGEL

AUSTIN - Despite having one of the highest poverty rates in the state and a large number of uninsured families, eight months ago Potter County had 1,230 kids enrolled in the state-sponsored Children's Health Insurance Program.

Today it has 1,913, a 55 percent increase, and is still growing.

It's the same story in Lubbock County. Although it does not have as high a percentage of low-income residents as Potter County, it has more than twice the population and that means more needy people as well. Yet as of August of last year, 2,363 children were enrolled in CHIP. Today, 3,493 youngsters are enrolled in the program, a 48 percent increase.

Even in Randall County, which does not have as large a number of needy people as Potter and Lubbock counties, the number of children in CHIP increased from 694 to 1,073, a 55 percent jump during the same period.

The story of Lubbock, Potter and Randall counties is the story all over Texas. From the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley and from El Paso to Texarkana, a total of 109,000 previously uninsured children were added to CHIP in the past eight months, two state legislators and some advocates for the needy said Tuesday. The state now has 409,176 in the program.

"Texas is moving in the right direction," Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said Tuesday after he and Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, and CHIP advocates released the enrollment figures. "But we (still) have a lot of work to do."

The two lawmakers and the CHIP advocates said though they are happy CHIP enrollment is up sharply, 1.5 million children in Texas remain uninsured, and the state leads the nation in both the number of youngsters and people of all ages who lack health insurance.

"That is absolutely abominable," Zaffirini said. "We must raise ourselves from this position."

The high number of uninsured children goes back to 2003 when the Legislature, facing a $10 billion shortfall, made drastic cuts to the program and other social programs.

CHIP is available to children whose parents are unemployed or employed but not eligible for coverage and do not earn enough money to buy coverage on their own.

Under federal guidelines, millions of working poor across the U.S. make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, the federal insurance program for the poor.

Nearly 90 percent of uninsured children live in families in which at least one parent is working full time, according to the Children's Defense Fund, one of the advocacy groups at Tuesday's conference.

"We are confident there is something we can do," to minimize the requirements, said Anne Dunkelberg of the Austin-based think-tank Center for Public Policy Priorities, another advocacy group.

In West Texas, like in other parts of the state, part of the problem is reaching out to needy families, said the Rev. Davis Price of the West Texas Organizing Strategy, a faith-oriented group actively involved in signing up children to CHIP.

"Many families don't even know that their kids qualify," said Price, who also was at the conference.

Price said he hopes with the media's help needy Texans, whether employed or unemployed, contact the program and if their children qualify, sign them up.

To find whether an uninsured child qualifies for CHIP or Medicaid, people should call 1-877-KIDS NOW (1-877-543-7669) or visit www.CHIPmedicaid.org.